QUEEN’S PARK – Social Services Minister Helena Jaczek should support the call to re-strike the Estimates Committee so that her frontline staff handling the fall-out from flawed computer software may testify as to what went wrong, says Bill Walker, MPP for Bruce-Grey-Owen Sound and PC critic for Community and Social Services.
“I think the Minister needs to be prepared to hear what the frontline staff has to say. The problems are continuing and she needs to face up to it,” says Walker.
For a second consecutive day at Queen’s Park, Walker called on the minister to agree to have Ontario’s welfare caseworkers give evidence in a legislative committee about a computer bug that resulted in $20 million in overpayments to 17,000 welfare and disability recipients last week. Alarmingly, the erroneous payments happened the same time Minister Jaczek herself testified in Estimates committee that she was confident the new computer system was working seamlessly.
“Minister Jaczek is a nice lady, and so I am perplexed that she is ducking this issue, and trying to brush it off as a small glitch. Clearly the situation is more complicated that she’s letting on,” he says.
Walker says the ministry’s own confidential document shows these problems were identified one year ago. The ministry in fact had to delay implementation in March and then again in July.
“There’s no excuse for her indifference or inaction,” he says. “The ministry knew there were problems, but chose to go ahead with it anyways. At this point, there is no option of just hoping this problem will go away.”
“This minister’s mandate is to protect Ontario’s most vulnerable and those who are most in need. Unfortunately, they’re the ones who are suffering and this government needs to do better,” Walker says. “If the minister won’t agree to restrike the committee, then she should come forward immediately and assure us this won’t happen again.”
